:-) Yes, we saw sights like that in Florida and in the Caribbean… And the magroves establish themselves amazingly fast. Even recent marine charts are outdated in many places—where they still show only shallows, there are already whole mangrove islands :-)

Amazing plants—they grow in salt water, float around as little seedling, can get their start even completely submerged, put up little snorkels to breathe, then throw out aerial roots to spread further…

About all I knew was the salt water bit … though I’ve walked over a ‘growing’ bed on the river at the Brisbane Botanical Gardens a couple of times, that’s as close as i’ve come. i know the destruction of mangroves around the delta of the Mekong as a result of Agent Orange has had a significant impact on the environment there.

These are young mangroves establishing themselves in the shallows around one of the islands on Glover’s Reef Atoll, Belize. (More photos from Glover’s Reef are here.) Mangroves can grow in salt water, and seedling floating in the water establish themselves on shoals that may even be completely submerged, thereby starting new mangrove islands. A common sight on the Gulf coast of Florida, in the Caribbean (as in this picture), and many other parts of the world…

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Vladimir Brezina
... has kayaked the waters around New York for over a decade in his red Feathercraft folding kayak. He comes originally from (the former) Czechoslovakia and has lived in the U.K. and California before settling down in New York. He is a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City.

Johna Till Johnson
... is a kayaker and technology researcher at Nemertes Research. She's an erstwhile engineer, particle physicist, and science fiction writer. She was born in California and has lived in Italy, Norway, Hawaii, and a few other places. She currently resides in New York City.